6.  The first applicant, Ms Dina Yakovlevna Yuditskaya, was born in 1950. The second applicant, Ms Natalya Vladimirovna Yuditskaya, was born in 1979. The third applicant, Mr Aleksandr Viktorovich Kichev, was born in 1966. The fourth applicant, Ms Yelena Robertovna Lavrentyeva, was born in 1958. The fifth applicant, Mr Valeriy Valeryevich Frolovich, was born in 1966. They live in Perm.
7.  The applicants are members of the Perm Bar. They are lawyers with the “Biznes i Pravo” law firm. At the relevant time, the firm’s premises comprised a reception area, five offices and a conference room. The first and second applicant shared an office. The fourth applicant and lawyer P. each had an individual office. The third and fifth applicants shared an office with lawyer I.T. Each lawyer had his or her own computer. There was also one more computer shared by all lawyers.
8.  On 1 December 2004 a criminal investigation was opened into bribe-taking by court bailiffs. One of the charges involved Kirov Perm Factory (the “Factory”), a State unitary enterprise, and bailiff T. According to the Government, in January 2005 the Factory’s director K. had paid 300,000 roubles (RUB) to a bailiff as a bribe. The actual bagman for the bribe cash had been bailiff T. In order to legalise “the transaction”, T. had asked his brother I.T. to sign a fictitious legal assistance contract with the Factory.
9.  On 7 February 2005 I.T. signed a legal assistance contract with the Factory in respect of legal advice on tax and other matters.
10.  According to the Government, on an unspecified date the investigator questioned K. and T. Both of them admitted to having been involved in the bribery scheme.
11.  On 6 May 2005 the Leninskiy District Court of Perm issued a search warrant authorising a search of the premises of the “Biznes i Pravo” law firm. The entire reasoning read as follows:
“On 1 December 2004 a criminal case was opened into [aggravated bribery] against Perm Regional Court bailiffs’ service no. 48. The investigation established that the State unitary enterprise Kirov Perm Factory and the ‘Biznes i Pravo’ law firm had entered into a fictitious contract in order to cover up the bribery. The investigator is seeking authorisation for a search of the premises of the ‘Biznes i Pravo’ law firm with a view to seizing documents that may be relevant to the case.
[The court] considers that the investigator’s request is justified and must be granted because there are reasons to believe that documents of the ‘Biznes i Pravo’ law firm may contain evidence relevant to the criminal case.”
12.  On 16 May 2005 the investigator conducted a search of the applicants’ premises. The applicants and two attesting lay witnesses were present during the search.
13.  According to the applicants, they voluntarily handed over the documents sought by the investigators; nevertheless, all the offices, including those of the applicants who had no relationship with the Factory, were searched. The investigators took away all the desktop and laptop computers and copied the entire contents of their hard disks. The computers were returned one week later.
14.  The applicants appealed against the District Court’s decision of 6 May 2005. They submitted that the contract with the Kirov Perm Factory had been signed by I.T. in his personal capacity as a lawyer rather than by the “Biznes i Pravo” law firm and that there had been no grounds to search the entire premises of the law firm. Moreover, the District Court had declared that contract to be fictitious even before a judgment had been handed down. The information held on their computers had been protected by the attorney-client privilege and the search and seizure had amounted to a gross violation of the Advocates Act.
15.  On 23 June 2005 the Perm Regional Court dismissed the applicants’ appeal, finding that the search warrant had been lawful and justified. In the Regional Court’s view, the District Court had not found that the contract was fictitious but had merely mentioned that the opinion of the investigation was that it had been fictitious.